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'Completely irresponsible': Sam Newman urges 250,000 people to protest lockdown

Sam Newman (pictured left) marching on Victorian parliament and a woman being arrested for not following the laws (pictured right).
Sam Newman (pictured left) has called for 250,000 people to protest in the streets of Melbourne, despite people being arrested for not following the laws (pictured right). (Twitter/Getty Images)

Controversial former AFL player Sam Newman has been absolutely savaged for urging Victorians to gather and protest on the streets in a bid to ‘take the city back’.

Protesters opposing the lockdown clashed with police on Sunday in Melbourne during ugly scenes in Australia’s most hard-hit coronavirus city.

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On the back of the protests, Newman made the call to action for up to 250,000 people protest.

Newman, who recently considered running for Lord Mayor of Melbourne, said it was time to ‘take the city back’.

“Of all the protests that we have put up with, how about 1/4 million of us gather in the CBD to take the City/State back, before EVERY previous march will have been pointless,” he wrote.

“And hopefully a State day of co-ordination. Any takers. #StateofSurvival”

But despite some support on social media, Newman was panned for such an “irresponsible” call when Victoria just had a huge surge in deaths from the virus.

“Completely irresponsible from Sam Newman, from someone who was until recenely running for Melbourne mayor,” reporter Edwina Bartholomew said on Sunrise.

“If you want to guarantee you will be in lockdown for another six months, sure join the protest.”

Others took to Twitter to slam the idea and urged those not to listen and follow the lockdown protocol set in place by Premier Daniel Andrews.

Newman’s call for a protest comes after Victoria suffered a surge in death tolls due to the coronavirus.

Victoria’s coronavirus death toll rises

Victoria’s daily death toll has surged on Monday, with an unprecedented 41 deaths, making it Australia’s deadliest day of the pandemic by far.

The previous highest daily death toll was 25 on August 17.

The Department of Health and Human Services said 22 of the deaths were over several weeks leading up to August 27 and had been reported by aged care facilities on Sunday.

Victoria Premier Andrews said just eight of those deaths were in the previous 24 hours.

“There are Commonwealth reporting obligations, state reporting processes, and we need to reconcile those cases, so that whatever the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre is reporting is absolutely consistent,” Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton explained.

“But it is heartbreaking to see a number of that magnitude, but it is a reflection of just how vulnerable those populations are.”